The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1887-05-05
DIR. TALMAGES SERMON.
ELOQUENT DISCOURSE CONCERNING
GOOD AND BAD LITERATURE.


GOOD AND BAD LITERATURE.
''Many of Them Also Which Used Curl
Ops Arts Brought Their Books To-
gether, and Burned Them Before All
Men"
BROOKLYN, May 1.-At the tabernacle this
morning the pastor, the Rev T. De Witt
Talmage, ID. d., expounded some of the Pro-
verbs of Solomon. The congregation sang
with magnificent effect the hymn beginning:
Arm Of the Lord, awake! awakel
Put on thy strength, the nations shake
Dr.. Talmago took for his text Acts xix, 80:
"Many of them also which used curious
arts brought their books together, and burned
them before all mcn: and they counted tile
price of them, and found it $1,000 pieces OF
silver"
Paul had been stirring up Ephesus with
some lively sermons about the sins of that
place Among the more important results was
the fact that the citizens brought out their
bad books, and in public place made bon
fire OF them. l see the people coming out
with their arms full of Ephcsian literature,
and tossing it into the flames. ! hear an
economist standing by and saying: "Stop this
you propose to burn them all up? If you don't
want to read them yourselves, sell them, and
let somebody else read them" ''No,' said the
people, ''if these books are not good enough
for us, they are not good for anybody else,
md we shall stand and watch until the last
leaf has turned to ashes. They have done US
a world of harm, and they shall never do
others harm.n Hear the flames craclle and
roari
Well, my friends, one of the wants of the
cities of this country is great bonfire of bad
books and newspapers We have enough fuel
to make blaze POO feet high. Many of the
publishing houses would do well TO throw into
the blaze their entire stock Of goods. Bring
forth the insufferable trash and put it into the
fire, and let it be known, in the presence OF
God, and angels, and men, that you are going
to rid your homes of tho overtopping and
underlying curse of rrofligate literature.
The printing press is the mightiest agency
on the earth for good and for evil The min
lister Of the Gospel, standing IN pulpit, has
responsible position; but do not think it is
as responsible as the position of an editor or
publisher. At what distant point of time, at
what far out cycle of eternity viii cease the
influence Of Henry j. Raymond, or Horace
Greeley, or a James Gordon Bennett, or
Watson Webb, or an Erastus Brooks, or
n Thomas Kjnsella? Take the simple fact
that our New York daiies now have circu-
iation of about S50,C00 per day, end add to
it the fact that three of our weekly period
icals have an aggregate circulation of about
100000, and then cipher, if you can how
far up and how far down and how far out
reach the influences of the American printing
press Great God; what is to be the issue of
all this! / believe the Lord intends the print
!. II
rescue and evanGelz9tion, and I think that
the great last battle of the world viii not be
fought with swords and guns, but with types
and presses-a purified and Gospel literature
4riumphing over, trampling DOWN and crush
ing out forever that which is depraved The
only way to overcome unclean literature is
by scattering abroad that which is healthful
May God speed the cylinders of an honest, in
felligent, aggressive, Christian printing press
| have to tell you this morning that the
greatest blessing that ever came TO this nation
is that of an elevated literature, ard the
greatest scourge has been that of uuciean
literature. This last has its victims Ia all oc-
cupations and departments. 1t has helped to
fill insane asyums, and penitentiaries, and
aims houses and dcns of shame. The bodies of
this infection lie in the hospitals and i'll the
graves, while their souls arc being tossed over
INTO a lOSb SdriIlIty, All dNuluucle Ol nOfIOf
and despairi
The London plagua was nothing to it. That
counted its victims by thousands, but this
modern pest has already shoveled its millions
into the charnel house of the morally dead.
The longest rail train that ever ran over the
Erie or Hudson tracks was not long enough
or large enough to carry the beastliness and
the putrefaction which have been gathered
up in bad books and newspapers Of this land
i'll the last twenty years.
Now, it is amid such circumstances that
put this morning question of overmaster-
ing importance to you and your families
What books and newspapers shall we read!
You see / group them together. \ news
paper is only book in swifter and more
portable shape, and the same rules which
will apply to book reading will apply to
newspaper reading. What shall we read?
Shall our minds be the receptacle of every
thing that an author has mind to wPite9 Shall
there he no distinction between the tree of
life and the tree of death! Shall we stoop
down and drink out of the trough which the
wickedness of men has filed with pollution
and shamei Shall we mire in impurity and
chase fantastic will o. the wisps across the
swamps when might walk in the bloom
ing gardens of Code Oh, no! For the sake of
our present and everlasting welfare we must
make an intelligent Christian choice. Stand
ing as we do chin deep in fictitious literature
the first question that many of the young
recole are asking me is: "Shall we read
novels!" I reply: There are novels that are
pure. good, Christian, elevating TO the heart
and ennobling to the life But have still
further to say that believe that ninety nine
out of 100 novels in this day are baleful and
destructive to the last degree. A pure work
of fiction is history and poetry combined. 1t
is a history of things around us with the
licenses aud the assumed names of poetry
The world can never pay the debt which it
owes to such fiction writers as Hawthorne
and Mckenzie, aud LandoR and Hunt and
Arthur and Marion Harland, and others
whose names are familiar to all. The follies
of Ll-h life were never better exposed than
liz Miss Edgeworth The memories of the
past we're never more faithfully embalmed
than in the writings of Walter Scott.
[ooner's novels are healthfully redolent with
tha breath OF the seaweed and the air of the
American forest. Charles Kingsley has
snittau the morbidity Of the world, and led
a great many TO appreciate the poetry of
sodnd health, strong muscles and fresh air.
Thaekerav did grand work in cRricGturing
the pretenders to gentility and high blood.
Dickens has bulls his own monument in his
books, which are an everlasting pea Iof the
poor and the anathema ofinjustice. Now, say,
books like these read at right times, and read
I'm right proportion with other books, cannot
help hut be emobling and purifying; but, alas
Tor The loathsome and impure literature that
has come upon this country in the shape of
novels, like a freshet overhowing all the
banks of decency and common sense! They
are coming from some of the most celebrated
publishing houses of the country. They are
coming with recommendations of some OF our
religious newspapers. They lie on your center
table to curse your children and blast with
their Internal fires generations unborn. You
find these books in the desk of the school
miss in the trunk of the young man. in the
steamboat cabin, on the table of the hotel